Outback hunt: Joanne gets rare taste of normality
The English tourist who escaped a gunman in a central Australian ambush nine days ago stepped into the sunshine in Alice Springs today to go shopping.
Joanne Lees, 27, dressed in shorts, trainers, a light jumper and sunglasses, was escorted by three plainclothes police officers as she wandered down Todd Mall.
A policewoman chatted to Joanne, from Huddersfield, while two policemen maintained discreet security from behind.
The shopping outing represented a rare return to normality for Joanne, who is recovering from the trauma of being abducted on a lonely Outback highway nine days ago.
She and the police officers had a snack in a sheltered corner of a cafe in a shopping centre before police became aware they had attracted media attention.
She was apparently secreted away to the Alice Springs safe house where she has been kept under police protection.
Her boyfriend Peter Falconio, 28, has not been seen since he was apparently shot by a gunman who attempted to abduct her on the Stuart Highway north of Alice Springs on July 14. Police are still searching for the gunman.
Police today stepped up their search for Peter Falconio’s body after Aboriginal tracker Ted Egan found vital evidence in the red dirt near a desert road nine miles from the crime scene.
‘‘That truck, he got a flat tyre,’’ the tribal elder told police after he checked the tracks of the gunman’s vehicle at the site of the shooting and abduction. ‘‘He not go far. He need to change.’’
He also confirmed that Joanne Lees had fled into the bush to escape the gunman.
‘‘I see tracks where she run and fall down beneath tree,’’ Mr Egan said. ‘‘She lie there, hidin’.’’
He confirmed the purpose of the intensified police search, saying: ‘‘Lookin’ dead body, big mob dead body, takin’ him back country belonga him.’’
The discovery of a flat tyre reinforced a police suspicion that the gunman did not drive far before dumping Mr Falconio in the bush.
Police suspect the gunman buried or dumped the body after driving onto one of the many tracks that feed into Neutral Junction cattle station.
